Morning Joe panelist stunned by latest GOP problems: 'Hard to imagine how things could be worse for Republicans'

A discussion on a surprising surge by the opponent of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) led an MSNBC "Morning Joe" regular to express shock at how badly the upcoming election looks for the Republican Party.

After co-host Mika Brzezinski read off the poll numbers showing 46% of likely voters say they would back Democrat Theresa Greenfield if the election were held today, and 43% say they would back Ernst, Kasie Hunt expressed genuine surprise.

"She's been tweeting thank you videos to President Trump. and the reality is that what has unfolded in the last five or six months is -- I mean, I'm almost afraid to say this because 2020 has thrown so many curve balls our way, but it's hard to imagine how things could be worse for Republicans who basically made this bed with Donald Trump," she exclaimed. "They said anyone who goes against him is essentially getting decapitated politically, we don't want to risk it, we're going to embrace him as tightly as we can. and then coronavirus happened and now people are in the streets and frankly, the president's divisive rhetoric is aggressively turning people against him."

"You're looking at -- there's a poll out of Arkansas over the weekend -- just one poll, we don't want to make too big of a deal out of it, but it shows the president's disapproval and Sen. Tom Cotton's disapproval moving by 10 or 20 points in some cases," she continued. "If you're Joni Ernst, how do you make the decision to throw all of that aside suddenly? The loyalty that this president demands as well from these candidates puts them in an unbelievably difficult position."

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